


last damn kid still kicking

by leedeeloo



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Depiction of Violence, Gen, and dangus too but he doesnt have a character tag and i dont have the heart, medical gore, origin, sung crying, two unnamed characters that say some things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leedeeloo/pseuds/leedeeloo
Summary: the meandering history and misgivings of doctor sung, followed by the subsequent disaster as said misgivings catch up to him.warnings necessary for each chapter in the notes at the beginning of the relevant chapter





	1. be golden in your memory

**Author's Note:**

> this is my piece for the twrp big bang!! its been a rough couple months, but i pulled through and im glad, and i hope yall like what i've done
> 
> no warnings for this chapter

For as far back as Sung could stretch his mind, he knew he was  _ special _ . Kind of. He knew it because that’s what his parents-- his mothers, Ahm and Layna, he called them by name like everyone else-- had always told him. He was the first child born on the colony. That was pretty damn special. The whole colony was important; the sun their home planet orbited was aging, the time it would die and engulf the planet drawing nearer. Not so fast that anyone really worried about it, but fast enough that colonies like this one were expected to spread, to find new places to live, new populations to integrate into, new people to be around.

He knew that was going to be his job. He’d grow up, and leave, searching for a new place, coming back to guide everyone to it, a mass migration from the home planet. 

And, for some reason, it was incredibly important he had an incredibly wide knowledge base.

Well, no, he knew the reason. Kind of. His parents often excitedly talked about his potential, all these hopes and dreams riding on his small shoulders. He adjusted to the weight of their expectations, shoulders broadening over time.

He grappled with interests and studies as they came at him, loving encouragement for every moment he stuck with something. Taking apart appliances was a pain for his parents to deal with, sure, but they swept that away at our darling Doctor’s interest in electrical engineering. The praise lavished on him grew when it was something his parents did, of course of course. Watching carefully when scrapes and bruises were bandaged and cleaned, that ever present interest with time as he sat in Layna’s lap in her ship, blipping forward and back a few minutes at a time. 

Caring for people made his heart swell, felt so right, what he was put on the world to do. Affecting the flow of time made his stomach bubble in giddy excitement, so fun, so interesting. It was a good mix. A great coincidence, considering his parents. 

He grew older, gaining a steadiness in his hands while stitching up his neighbor after dropping a plate on their foot, a clearness in his head while he steered a terrain pod, to the other side of the colony and pulling time back so he could see the sunset. All those other interests fell away, just a little, not as important as his parents’ coveted skills. His coveted skills, not bestowed on him by them, but shared.

It was just a natural progression. His-- no, their purpose. Why everyone was there.

He was going to leave.

Not forever, you understand. It was just going to be scouting, finding a new place to live, a new population to integrate into. The colony was fine, but his people thrived on having others around. Even the home planet was rich with life, bursting at the seams with travelers and visitors, the existence of others fueling their very lives. The colony, as a temporary place to live and search from, was fine, but it lacked that component, and everyone Sung had ever known felt it. Everyone he’d ever known felt the lack of affiliation like they felt a phantom limb.

The day he left wasn’t a sad day. It was new beginnings, beloved child grown up and heading out into the universe, helping them. He got a parting gift. He thought Ahm was just bringing the cat to say goodbye, too, but she passed it into his arms. Didn’t take it back.

“Ahm, c’mon, I gotta go, the satellite is gonna come overhead-” She shook her head at Sung’s protests.

“Take it. You need the company.”

Purring under his jaw as his fingers stroked fur. “But, it’s Layna’s cat, she’s had it forever!”

Layna spoke up this time. “You’re the favourite.” She reached out, gave one last parting scratch. “And you’ll need someone to cuddle all the time.”

Sung smiled, nodded. One last big hug with his parents, and he turned and boarded his ship. Once the door was locked, he dropped the cat to the floor, last minute checks, a carrier for it right in the cockpit, planned all along. 

He wasn’t leaving forever, he kept telling himself. He kept telling himself a lot of things, thoughts swirling through his mind; there was still a bit of his soap at home, the couple two blocks down was expecting twins, how Layna never named the cat and Ahm still teased her about it, it was the first memory Sung had of them. While he was swimming through all the snippets of his life so far, he’d gotten everything ready, the cat and himself safely strapped in for take off. 

If he could’ve seen everyone watching him leave, he’d have come right back.

* * *

 

Being off the planet, seeing other people, in all honesty, was kind of overwhelming. The first dock he landed in, he barely got into the city, sent himself reeling back to his ship over the abundance of… everything. It took some adjusting, and he really never got over constantly turning and looking at things like some kind of tourist, but a crowd of people stopped bringing tears to his eye, the sheer presence of other beings started to be something he could handle. 

He didn’t really get his bearings until about the second planet out, and even then it was right before he left. His parents urged him to move quickly until he found a planet that felt right-- everyone trusted his judgement-- so he quickly made his way to the edge of the solar system. He sent more transmissions the farther he got, knowing they’d take longer, easing the ache of the distance as much as he could. 

People, he learned, always needed healing. In some capacity. Not the way he was used to; always something more physical than emotional, and they also offered to pay for it. So he accepted. Ahm always stressed, every call, how he’d need to make a living, and that sounded so abstract that he barely payed attention. But then, people pressing money into his palm as he healed their wounds, that he needed for his next meal, then he understood. Not everyone was so bound to their neighbor, so caring of those that existed next to them, as he had been raised to believe. Thankfully he had something worth paying for. Of course every time it happened, every time someone gave him compensation other than a smile for fixing their injuries, he felt this hot wash of guilt. This wasn’t something he should be charging for, he felt. This was his duty, what he could do for others. He was there to help, wasn’t he? And his parents assured him, yes, he and their people were to make things better for others, but.

But no one else quite  _ got _ this, and insisted to pay, and he needed that pay to live, so it was fair. Wasn’t it? It was just a roundabout way, his parents reasoned, calming his uneasiness. So Doctor Sung learned to swallow it, smile his acceptance, pocket the currency and trade that for what he needed. He even got used to it. 

And then, outside of the compassion, was what no one expected.

It was a thumping he heard one day; he’d come from where he’d docked his ship, into the heart of the city for somewhere to offer his services and maybe buy some cat food, and he heard it.

No, heard wasn’t quite right.

He felt it.

He felt the percussive thump in his chest first, and he followed, pushing through the crowd. Crowds didn’t happen for no reason, there had to be something going on. He thought, briefly, that something was wrong, but that idea quickly fell away, that wasn’t the tone here. He got closer, heard more, felt more, didn’t have the word for it at the time but later placed it as the melody, the actual factual trueblue music.

It was a band. Street performers, he’d seen that, with a little bit more of an elaborate set up, equipment with them, making all this noise. 

He stayed, watching their whole performance until it was over, too overcome by it to move even then, squatting on the ground and staring at where they were. 

Errands and income long forgotten, he made his way back to his ship, trying to place this feeling in his chest, wondering how it made his eye look. 

He loved it.

Loved the sound, the energy, needed to hear something like that again. He loved it when he got back, loved it when he immediately left at the urging of his cat’s hungry yowls, heart still flooding with love for a concept, an experience, as he dug deep in his pockets for cat food. He made his way back humming something half remembered, half made up, footsteps light and rhythmic, twirling and leaping, swaying and  _ dancing _ . He picked up the cat once he was inside, continuing this joyus movement, held its small body close to his, letting his elation overflow into his only companion. 

This was fantastic. 

He had to call his mothers.

He had to name the cat, he promised he would on the last call.

* * *

 

Just one solar system further, and differences and changes were piling up, pushing Doctor Sung into a person he never thought he would be. 

He named his cat, for one. About three times over, yeah, but the first few names didn’t stick. Socks was too simple, Machete wasn’t fitting, Angel was almost right but a little too sweet, so he fudged the sound around to Angle, and then he had a brainwave (a burp) and Angus came into being, and it was just too perfect. Layna thought it was adorable, if a little unorthodox. 

He smiled to himself as he ate his lunch. No one came to sit with him today, he had a weird shift, but, hey, he had a job. It was just an onsite medic for a construction company, but it paid nice and was going to be temporary, so he could skedaddle after spending a comfortable amount of time here. Or maybe not. He liked it here, the population friendly, the climate agreeable. It felt like a nice place to stay. He only really wanted to see his family, his people.

Finally, there was the music thing. It felt silly, superfluous, but he did some research on it after that first day. And it felt absolutely ludicrous that he’d never experienced it before! It gave him the same giddy feeling time travel did, calling all his concentration the way medical practice did, making something beautiful all the while. Well, theoretically. He had some spending money and picked up a cheap keyboard, something the seller claimed was easy to learn, and on sale, if you don’t buy this now someone is guaranteed to snatch it up instead! so Sung had no choice but to learn how to use it, plunking out notes and melodies that never satisfied his ears.

Everything was going so well.

So well, in fact, that he almost didn’t think about how the last two calls to his parents had been messages, they never actually picked up, and he hadn’t heard back.

He was far away, two, three solar systems apart? Of course messages were taking longer to get across, especially when he kept moving around the way he was. Their messages were probably just lagging behind, it was good that he decided to stay put for a bit.

That didn’t calm the churning in his gut. 

That didn’t stop him from flicking through newspapers, scanning for news of something. He didn’t know what that something was, hoped beyond hope that it was something as simple as communication channels being out, didn’t even want to give words to the formless fear at the corners of his mind. 

In a sick way, it was lucky he found out the truth on a day he was considering going back.

Just as he was done eating, heading back to work, he got a friendly shoulder bumping into him. One of the construction crew that had been in the industry a long while, worked close with the management, played a big hand in the creation of the position Sung was hired for. He’d taken a liking to Sung, a big reason he wanted to stay, honestly.

“Hey kid,” he started, and Sung turned to listen, smiling. “You coming to my viewing party tonight, or are you gonna serenade your cat again?”

Sung laughed, covered his mouth, the rows of sharp teeth. “I’m not serenading him, he’s just in the room. What’s the party- what are you viewing?”

“The star in the Bernstrom system blew, and the light’s just getting to us. You’re not gonna be able to not see it, but that kinda shi- stuff is way better with people, y’know?”

Sung stopped breathing. Felt tears well up in his eye. Bernstrom was home- not his home, but everyone else’s. If the star blew, it took home with it, the colony was closer, they’d have seen it by now, it wasn’t supposed to have gone yet, had he really been-

“Doc?” A hand on his arm, barely grazing him, sent a shock to his system. “Man, you’re not sick, are you? That’d be…” but he trailed off, sensing this wasn’t the time to joke.

“That’s home,” Sung murmured, he could barely hear himself. “That’s where my parents are from, I- I gotta... “

“If you gotta call your folks, that’s fine, take a longer lunch, we don’t-”

“I’ve been calling!” Sung blurted. Everything was blurry, a headache coming on. “They haven’t answered, I thought the comms were just out but-” A sob bubbling up his throat, he swallowed it back down. “I’m sorry, I have to quit. I have to go home right now.”

There was some kind of question in response, but Sung just left. Walking as fast as he could, back to his ship, he had to go back, he’d just been wasting time. He was walking blindly, trying not to cry, tried to stay calm, he wouldn’t be able to  _ do _ anything if he panicked. 

His hands were shaking as he made it back into his ship, didn’t latch the door properly two, three, four times, his hands weren’t working the way he needed them to, this was getting very bad very fast. He kept blinking, trying to clear his vision, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t, everything was blurry, just out of focus.

The wall, he walked into the wall, couldn’t even walk straight but it was fine, he just had to follow it, get to the cockpit, the pilot’s seat, and he could go. 

It occurred to him that he was very not fine when he saw Angus walking towards him, perpendicular to the wall.

Cats didn’t walk on walls. At least this one couldn’t. 

He didn’t realize he was lying on the floor until he tried to lift his arm, gravity not pulling him the way he expected. 

A tiny wet nose on his, he felt air moving around his face, rough licks of a tongue. 

He didn’t have time to shut down like this. But he couldn’t risk rushing it. 

The ship wasn’t on, not enough of it, he couldn’t pause time. He just had to lay there, his cat licking his face, somehow knowing that was helping. He returned the favour once he could lift his arm, scratching Angus’ shoulder, trying to get more contact; he was only a cat, but god it still helped. 

Steadily, he calmed down, worked himself into sitting up (first against the wall and then away from it), cautiously into standing. Angus going from clutched to his chest to standing on his shoulders as Sung wobbled upwards, watched the steps he took. 

There was still a wicked pounding in his head, stomach twisting and bile in his throat, but he could see fine again. He had to keep calm. Had to push the reason he was leaving out of his mind, really, just to stay stable enough to do it. He turned on the engine, double checked all the systems as they clicked on, buckled himself in and was so glad he gave into temptation the last time he was shopping and got that little pet extender belt so he could keep Angus on his lap. 

He didn’t even fuss at all, again, like he knew. 

Leaving the atmosphere was a good distraction, something to focus on. He just had to focus on flying as he sped past planets, almost lost himself in that task.

Almost.

He saw it blooming in the distance, the light; a fat red star, way far off, just a little bigger than the ones around it.

He purposefully didn’t look. Upped his speed, flicked on the core and listened to it hum, warm up. There was no way he could pull time far back enough to matter, but he could slow it, almost stop it. Buy himself more time. Maybe everyone back home was doing just that, buying their time until he appeared and escorted them somewhere new, a new booming planet they could safely mourn on.

It felt more and more like a lie, like a weak little comfort; the star got bigger and bigger, destruction of the planet more sure, his tardiness crystal clear. There wasn’t any stalling he could do to delay the inevitable. He shut off the core, and put that power into speed, let the ship and his stomach lurch. 

He tried not to look at the colony as he landed, still clinging to his hope.


	2. until your heart goes numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> medical gore at the end of this chapter

The docking station was cold and still, Sung’s footsteps echoing farther than he could see. The ground outside, the air, it felt the same too. Everything was frozen, off. This colony he grew up in, had nothing but fond memories of, all he had memories of, reeked of grief.

He didn’t cover his mouth or nose as he walked to his home. It just didn’t occur to him. 

The walk took less time than he thought. 

He didn’t peer in the windows the way he was normally so keen to do. Kept his head down, it was pure muscle memory to his house, one, two, three, sixteen steps from the main road to the door, turn the handle and swing it open, unlocked as always.

The beeping of backed up comm messages. Static.

As soon as he looked up, there it was. In the living room, Ahm and Layna, arms around one another, frozen, waves of grief and loss and minute amounts of other things rolling off of them, still. They were like statues.

He shut the door behind himself. 

Glanced down, habit again, Angus inside, didn’t slip out, was still at his heels, same as always.

Sung shook his head.

For some reason, walked to the TV first, checked what channel it was left on. The news. Flicked it up, channel fourteen, fifteen, seventy-two. Static, static, static. No one was making sure these worked anymore.

Then the comm station. Incessant beeping, the number two flashing on the display. He pressed play, and his own face flashed up on the hologram. 

A cheerful message from him, about his job, people he talked to, how Angus liked the pet food here. Soft meowing in the background, he was rushing, he could tell, rattling off a report as if it didn’t matter, as if he’d get to expand later, as if they’d have questions later. 

The next message had some more worry clinging to it. Not much, but a little. Still preoccupied with his life, these silly little job concerns, the people around him.

Anger made his face flush. At what, though? At himself? He decided that was it without a second thought. Tried to sift through his memories, what was the actual last thing they’d heard from him. Was he upset? Cheery? What concerns did he lay upon his parents before they perished? What were they telling the neighbors before absolutely everything fell apart?

His chest hurt. Somewhere within him, a deep pang, something pulling apart. 

Doctor Sung became acutely aware that if he stayed here, he would die. 

He set upon a sudden rush though the house, for anything he could use on his ship; clothes, medicine, non-perishable food-

Journals.

His mothers kept journals for as long as he could remember, their own research and just documenting their lives. He couldn’t handle the weight of their existences now, but later, in bits, in pages and sentences, he could.

The most recent ones on a dresser, on the kitchen counter. Older ones in boxes in the closet,  in a filing cabinet. 

Everyone sent here, to the colony, was an expert in their field. In something. He’d bided his time with what to say on his messages back home, listening and re-listening to their messages to him. Now he could learn, pull himself away from this stark loneliness and Do Something with his brain. 

He was frantic.

Boxes and boxes, trinkets and gadgets, siphoned onto one of the larger ships docked here, larger than his own, he could easily coax it into time travel. There was some shame, of course, obviously, of especially looting everyone’s homes. He tried to avert his eyes, how everyone was in a similar position to his parents. Clustered, cuddled together, watching the same horror unfold, feeling the same despair. 

People had started having children once he left.

He lost sense of time, had no idea how long it took him to salvage every possible supply. He focused his energy on packing up a new shiny ship, transferring things, logging everything so he knew what he had.

Sentimentally, he did his own home last. Plunging a dagger into his gut as motivation to finish, to leave.

Easy sailing, until.

Until.

An odd little device, kind of conically shaped, a light embedded in metal, circuits encircling it. 

He didn’t know what it was.

Turned it over in his hands, pouting, furrowing his brow. This was taking up his time, his energy, he should just class it as  _ something _ and pack it and move on-- but he couldn’t. 

He got drawn in, flipping through journals, research, they’d both do rough sketching of things, Ahm had more artistic skills, but that didn’t matter. And then he got caught up. Not without reason, though.

Dated from when they should have been in transit, he saw his name on the pages. A list of names, his included. It made sense, didn’t it, that they were expecting him on their way here. But something didn’t sit right. He slowed his turning of pages, skimmed the words with a little more purpose. 

Not a child they were expecting.

An experiment to execute.

A name for a crafted being, a blend of technology and organic material, an android born and forged, grown artificially. Not everyone grew upwards the way he did? Not everyone needed their bones lengthened, chrome levels checked in their blood stream, never sick, an anti-virus program installed all along.

Not a child, but a theory.

Not created with that familial love, that came after, but fostered with a scientific curiosity, plans laid out that he followed, to the letter, he was programed for that. Every path laid out, and he followed the one he picked perfectly. 

His choice, his mission, leaving to find a new home, predicted decades before he even really existed. Before they even set foot on a ship. 

He could feel something brewing in him, some wretched feeling bringing tension and pain to his body. He slapped the journal shut, categorized this strange little thing as a personal item and shoved it into the pouch strapped to his thigh. It bulged out strangely and he forced it all out of his mind, throwing himself into the routine of packing, not feeling, not feeling.

Truthfully, by the time he got everything packed up and ready to go, he had almost forgotten about it. It was dropped into some compartment in the cockpit, more storage space in this ship, bigger than the one he had been using. If he wasn’t in a rush to get out, he’d take it for a test drive. 

If he couldn’t feel himself slowly and steadily dying every second he spent there, he could do a lot of things.

When he was finally prepared to leave, it couldn’t happen fast enough. He’d packed up every possible useable thing from the colony, forgoing sleep to get it all done, though it’s not as if he didn’t try. It felt unnatural to sleep in his parent’s home, or anyone else’s, because of the plain fact of the matter that Doctor Sung did not know what to do with the bodies.

Nobody he’d ever known had died before. He didn’t know what was proper to do. So he left everyone where they were, having only tried once to touch anybody.

Sleeping on the ship was reduced to exhausted cat naps, quickly waking with pains in his body, getting back to work because motion and thinking staved it off. 

Just like the first time he left, he didn’t dare look back.

More than a little reckless, Sung headed  the same way he had before, retracing his steps, as if he could catch up to his past self and change things. Even if that were true, he didn’t have the nerve to land on the same planets again. He made an abrupt turn where he hadn’t before, unwilling to chase a phantom of who he had been.

And then he did something he didn’t understand.

Idly fiddling with controls, not actually pressing anything or flipping any switches, just grazing his fingers over them, he thought about the engine of this ship. How to make it leap through time, Layna had taught him how to manipulate every craft they had to do that, even if they weren’t necessarily built for it. He shook his head, throwing the memory out of his mind. 

He reached across the console, started changing settings and activating drives. He’d go somewhere different, some _ time _ different, didn’t matter where. 

His hand hovered over the last thing he needed to press. A tap to undo it all, hold it down and commit. Later, he thought it felt reminiscent of pulling the trigger on a gun; holding his breath, a steady pressure, readying himself for the consequences. 

* * *

In a way, he lucked out. This first planet he landed on was one rich with exactly what he needed-- distractions. Specifically, music.

There were different types, a long and well catalogued history, so much for him to throw himself into. There was also a booming population, clinics willing to give him work, people always ailing. 

It was strange, kind of.

His days were spent in a clinic, a doctor’s office, a hospital, wherever needed him, really, patching people up. He didn’t have the credentials for more than first aid, really. He’d get through his days mechanically, cleaning wounds and applying bandages. 

After work, however.

After work was when he lived. He’d go to the library, any library, peruse their music collections. Take books and records home, blare music through to PA system of his ship, Angus always by his side, in his lap, as he read theory, criticism, anything related to this subject. The cockpit was always somehow closer to him than the player, and with a guilty smile he’d pull time back a few minutes to hear a song over again, remembered what page he was on as they fluttered back to where he had been. 

Even at work, whatever passion he once had for helping was missing. His mind resided in the hours after, what new things he would learn, what interesting things would he hear; he’d frequently been brought to tears from it all, it felt so cleansing to have shuddering breaths over some feeling articulated in a way he’d never thought was possible. 

He tried his best to translate that himself. The keyboard he picked up, although forgotten for a little while, he got back to practicing when he landed. He had no way of knowing if what he was doing was right, however, but he did know if it sounded nice. He’d even brought it into the library one day, he and the librarian flicking through files to find out what it was named here, or any equivalent, and if there were any manuals. 

Amazingly, it yielded results.

Even more amazingly, the librarian let him buy the book rather than check it out, shaking the dust out of the pages and telling him, really, it was was no bother for him to keep it. 

He tried to read it all the way through before putting it into practice, but he just couldn’t help himself. He read through maybe half of the first lesson before flipping back to the beginning and plunking along. 

It was after one of these practice sessions, that he had the idea. The transition from his practice to a fully fleshed out piece of music.

Doctor Sung should start a band.

The idea overtook him instantly,  and he felt that ‘I have to leave’ pull again. For the first time in a long time. For the first fun reasoning in a long time. 

Apropos of nothing, he gave in his notice, made sure his ship was fueled up, started looking up what was going on on the planets nearby. 

It was a little… cheaty. He’d circle planets, flick through time streams to see if there was anyone of notable musical talent. He didn’t care what exactly, just something. Something that made a nice fun sound, something that got his heart pumping.

He passed by many planets, not finding anything worthwhile.

It was when he was clipping through galaxies, the blank spaces between, he saw something.

Himself, specifically.

A spectre of himself heading the other way, band members in the same ship- he assumed, at least. The inside looked the same, but the outside was so outrageously different. A flat disk, with the cockpit bubbling in the middle. He followed this timeline, making sure it wasn’t just coincidence.

The stream went to a planet, one with people, a booming population, something that would’ve been perfect for--

There were people, and he had a band. A good band. He saw himself, this confidence and ease in his motions he wasn’t sure he ever had, the members around him exuding the same, making him hold his breath as he watched. 

Drums, two guitars- regular, and bass. Him on keyboard, and something else; a tube to his mouth. 

He let this vision of some version of himself continue on, ship slowing and stopping, all the time streams falling away. 

He looked so cool. He put his hand over his stomach, some combination of feelings making him queasy. That was the life he wanted, that was the timeline he wanted to get into. He got a fleeting glance of what he could be, and it terrified him. A cold sweat spread across his skin, and he revved the engine, speeding off, trying to leave those thoughts behind. He didn’t dare let himself think again until he landed somewhere. 

* * *

He stumbled along into his ‘normal’ routine, work and practice, work and practice, his parents journals, like his thoughts of them, shoved out of the way where he wouldn’t have to confront them. The strange little device he found always on his person; he just couldn’t bear to leave it alone, some nagging instinct that he might need it.

One day after work he mechanically marched himself to a pawn shop, intending to get rid of the damned thing. He was impatient, handing it over for appraisal and immediately folding his arms over his chest, eager to get away. Slowly, infuriatingly slowly, the person behind the counter turned it over. Got out a magnifying glass to inspect it. 

“This is an enhancement.” They spoke as slowly as they moved.

“Okay? How much can I get for it?” Sung tried not to tap his foot in irritation, he really did.

“Where’d you get this from? This-”

“My moms made it,” Sung cut them off, then clamped his mouth shut, let them finish. “What is it?”

“This is an enhancement for a robot or something, but it’s medical grade.” They held it out, the chrome, the translucent blue core of it, catching the light. Sung nodded. “It doesn’t say what it’s for, it doesn’t have a standard connection, or any connection that I can see.” 

“So…?”

“No one’s going to buy this.” And with that, they set it back on the counter, leaned away. Sung snatched up his worthless heirloom and walked out without a word.

He clutched it in his hands as he walked, tempted to throw it at the ground and watch it shatter. The words his mothers wrote kept circling in his head, leaving him even more ungrounded than he ever thought possible. Somehow, he made it back to his ship, hands cramping from his grip, and he didn’t dare let the device go.

Unceremoniously, he sat down in front of the boxes of journals. If nothing else, he was going to figure out what the hell this thing was, and what if had to do with him. 

It made him sweaty, reading it all. He couldn’t stomach digesting every page, so he skimmed, looking only for information about this thing. His legs folded, it rolled idly in the space between them,  he periodically pushed the cat’s paw away as he tried to bat at it, climb in Sung’s lap. 

The research was slow going, he ignored the ringing of his communicator, surely he had just lost track of time and now it was the next day, he was late. He didn’t care. 

He didn’t care, it was for him, forged to enhance his skills. They started making it shortly after he left, to stem the gap of his absence. Of course, it was planned, something they accommodated for in his body, his growth, but the exact uses of it weren’t known. 

An enhancement, like he was told, for a non-standard robot. It was made to slot into his sternum, right in that little divot he ran his fingers over as he fell asleep. He mimicked that motion, feeling the size of it. Just the size of the device.

The core, his prismatic core that his parents made for him.

He kept turning that over in his head. They made this for him, tailored to his skills. It would enable him to time travel without a ship, to flick through time unassisted. It was going to boost his mental influence, make everyone else’s emotions all the clearer to him, make his healing practically effortless, his clunky helmet then needed for the opposite of its intended purpose, to dampen his powers when not needed rather than amplify. 

It was all laid out in front of him. Plans, blueprints, folded up between pages now spread out in front of him. It brought up that feeling when he first found their research. An echo of it. This betrayal, the ground falling out from under him, everything was wrong and while he left the planet we wondered why it hadn’t killed him, wished it had. And in the reverberations of those feelings bouncing back at him, he got clarity from the jumbled mess.

They made him to get around that weakness, that emotional overload bringing physical death. The kids everyone was expecting, they were going to be like him, too. He was deemed sturdy enough, stable enough, his parents shared their methods of creating him, to ensure a generation that wouldn’t die of heartbreak, that could weather a great loss.

Their experiment was more successful than they ever could have imagined, and the only one who knew it, was the experiment himself.

It just seemed obvious now. Like fate. He turned the prismatic core over in his hands, feeling every little divot and bend of it. Fingers skating across the glass front. It was the least he could do, for his parents, his people, himself, to install it. It was all ready to go, he was in prime condition, it was all ready to go. 

He took one last look at everything spread out in front of him, settling on the page of how it was intended to be installed. A journal, an owner’s manual for his new core. He grabbed it and stood up, heading to the med bay. 

His hands didn’t shake, not one tremor. He was the calmest he’d been in a long time. His only concern was if he had the right supplies for this. A sharp enough scalpel, enough bandages. Of course he did. What kind of doctor would he be if he didn’t?

An afterthought, forgotten until it was too late, he didn’t have any kind of anesthetic. He wasn’t that kind of doctor.

He gathered everything he needed, clipped open the book to the pages he needed, mournfully pushed Angus out from underfoot, out of the room. He didn’t want cat hair getting in an open wound. His foresight went to turning up the heat in the room, just before he stripped down to his skivvies. 

It was weird. Not his body, not really, just the situation. How he hadn’t really looked at himself since… since it  _ happened _ , his own appearance a reminder of everyone he’d ever known, how he was the last one to exist to ever look like this, to have a body like this. How he was the first one, really, to have a body like this. He still didn’t want to look, but he had to; in front of a mirror, feeling for the subtle divot, dotting around it with a marker, slowly and frequently double checking it was the perfect center of his chest. And then, a little out of order, cleaning the area, smearing the marker and washing it off and starting over. 

The air in the room and water from the sink was slowly warming up. Cat scratching, mewling at the door, He didn’t notice any of it. 

As if the med bay was built for him in this exact moment, there was a mirror on the ceiling, right over a table perfect for operating on himself. It could even be pulled down lower, closer, giving him a better view. He didn’t even have to chance accidentally catching his gaze, looking in his eye and gauging his mood. He was fine. He felt fine. No pain, pulse and breathing steady, head clear like this was the thing he was made to do.

Once he got used to watching the reflection, he made the first incision. Hurt, hurt, pain, hurt, he kept going, kept cutting. Steady even motion, a nice easy circle. It was weird, touching his own flesh after he cut it right out-- really touching it, he didn’t bother with gloves-- but he didn’t have time to ruminate on it. He had an open wound now, an implant to make.

Under that circle of skin, there wasn’t anything. Just the port. His sternum, his bone, slowly getting covered with blood, a deep red jewel colour.

His blood.

His blood, seeping from the wound he just made, pooling in the port. That wasn’t good. 

Everything he needed was right next to him. The core face down on his stomach, ready and waiting. He grabbed some gauze, just to soak up the blood. Core in the other hand, he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. It hurt, it stung, the gauze rasping against tender insides never meant to be exposed. 

Gauze away, core in, twisting it around, twisting his face up, until it felt right. He didn’t know how it was going to click in, the surface of it was smooth, the pit was smooth, he didn’t look at the designs in the pit, maybe he fucked up maybe this was a mistake maybe it was all going wrong and he was going to stubbornly bleed out alone and a failure--

A kick to his chest, a tingling bursting out from it, his new centre, across his whole body, static passing over his vision before making his scalp crawl, fingers felt alien and then familiar, legs falling asleep and jerking awake. 

It was in, activated, the wound healed up once it clicked into place. He knew that, because it told him. It told him everything. All his vitals, tracked and ready for him to pull up-- think about-- any time he wanted. He sat up, his blood pressure wavered a bit. Sped up as he thought about that, excitement bubbled in his stomach, moreso as he knew, had it labeled, right there in his brain. 

He wanted to test it.

Scratching.

_ I’m lonely I miss you let me in I love you _

Angus, outside the med bay, his cat’s thoughts-- no, feelings, his cat’s feelings, he was feeling them like always but now they were transcribed into thoughts, he knew how far away Angus was, exactly how strong the feeling was. 

He tested the time travel.

Up and dressed in a second. Clipped through washing his hands again. Opened the door and felt love love love  _ pick me up I missed you pick me up touch me _ . Picked up the cat, held him close, spun back to the cockpit. 

He could do anything, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!!


	3. these friends are golden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings

Sung moved with a flourish. It didn’t matter what he was going, he always flourished now. He didn’t even check the messages on his comm, just called back to say he was leaving now, thanks, you can keep my last pay, I don’t want it. Confusion over the line as he hung up, just before the flash of anger.

He had a new mission, a new goal, impulsively decided as soon as he took off.

He was going to form the perfect band.

Of course, he couldn’t deny, the only thing he had to go off was that one glimpse he had into another timeline. But that was fine! He had all the time in the world-- in the universe!-- and he had no qualms about using it.

He also, thankfully, had no qualms about taking up more and more hobbies. Learning more and more instruments. Scanning through timelines took, well, time, and it gave him headaches, seeing double, triple, far more than he was ever intended to. Still, he forced his spirits up.

It was when he was fiddling with drumming. He’d rearranged, refitted the cockpit so he could play whatever instrument fit his fancy as he navigated. A man with nothing but time on his hands, he had gotten pretty good at everything he’d picked up. But it was when he was drumming when he heard it.

No, when he felt it.

A sympathetic thumping. A weird, not unfamiliar echo of what he’d been. This cry for help across the cosmos, painfully similar.

He zeroed in on it, telling himself it was just normal empathy, nothing to do with what he was like, what he’d felt-- Doctor Sung always was and always had been chipper and upbeat, and it was just his duty to bring this to other beings. No personal understanding of their suffering whatsoever.

He paid no attention to the planet as he came on it, not tempted at all to peer into the time streams. He didn’t take any cautious glances into the future, noting the crowds. He had no idea what it’s coordinates were, didn’t save this location for future reference.

He followed that feeling, knew it was someone, someone alive, finally, thankfully, a companion. Someone he could save, they’d be so glad, of course they would stay with him forever, join his band and everything would be peachy-keen.

Confronted with some almost corpse, his past insisting on echoing ahead of him, Sung let out a huff and got to work. He was going to commit to saving this, whatever it was.

Inarticulate pain kept bouncing around his mind, clouding his thoughts, his vision by proxy. Elbow deep in a body, he started shushing it.

“Shut up,” he muttered, “you don’t even have a heart, shut up, how are you feeling this.”

He kept up the shushing, only silencing when it worked. When all the thoughts stopped.

When he was alone again.

Before he could ruminate on that, he clipped back, to before he even touched the thing. From the silence to practical static in his head. Shushing still, but a little less liberally. He didn’t mean it as much as he did before, he didn’t want everything to _stop_ , just get quieter.

It started this awful awful cycle, of fucking up and stopping everything and then going back just enough to try again. He didn’t learn anything, just the same mistakes over and over until he finally snapped out of it.

Reset. Step back. Breathe.

He actually looked at it. For the first time. The body, it wasn’t what was in here the first time he walked in, his first attempt, Sung was sure. A lean frame, some kind of breathing apparatus on it’s face, a seam down the torso cracked open enough to Sung to pry the rest of the way. He was certain that it was different when he first came in. Maybe all the resetting had changed something.

Sung brought his hand to his chest, his core, brought up all the other time streams. He was going to do this right, get exactly what he wanted. It was like flipping through television channels, but he could see them all at once.

There it was.

The same body, armor bent and shed, a more terrifying mask, the same empty chest. That felt right. As Sung clipped into the stream, into that other version of himself, he thought it felt like fate. Everything settled, it was real, this was the timeline he was following, and he set to work. Carefully. Methodically.

There was the beginning of something in his bones, something he couldn’t pace until far later.

As this being blinked back to life, the steadiest pulse Sung could give him, he had an inkling what this was.

Not fate, but a broad and glittering stroke of luck.

Luck that he brought something back to life. That he stayed. That he didn’t burden Sung with the naming process, offered one up, the only thing he offered up.

How lucky that now Havve Hogan existed for Doctor Sung to cling to.

* * *

 

With a companion-- walking, talking, thinking companion!-- by his side, Sung had calmed down a little in his searching. And in his staunch denial that anything had ever happened to him and that anything was wrong.

It seemed fair, after all, to bare his soul to someone he saved. And they had the time for it. They had time for lots of things; for Sung to constantly be tweaking and improving their bodies, teaching Havve what he knew musically (though he was only really interested in drumming, as if he had some energy bursting under his skin, eager to get out), and long thoughtful tirades on where and when to settle down, how much trouble it would be to pick up the other members that Sung knew were out there.

There was a strange balance between the two of them. Sung had been to so many places, seen so much, plunged Havve back into the living world. Whereas Havve knew only his name, no memory of how he got to be where he was, couldn’t even recall the bottomless pain before he clicked back online.

Little blessings.

He still had muscle memory, after all. He’d followed after what Sung had taught him about drumming, and then took to it as if it was what he was built to do, progressing past Sung’s knowledge base.

Well.

‘Built’ was a funny way to talk about Havve. Near as Sung could tell, he was largely organic. Fleshy limbs and organs, a mechanical voice box that was far better than the organic version it was based off of. His heart was fully machine, and Sung had installed that himself, in a strange, slowed down haze. His skin was different too, clearly enhanced patches, large swathes of his torso, front and back, which hadn’t been much defense against whatever did him in. But Havve was clearly and organic being with enhancements, not a robot.

Not like Sung, either.

Not that it mattered. It was lovely to have someone to talk to again, who would talk back, who the cat liked too. Words would buzz out of him, nice and steady, clear and strong. A voice that could cut through crowds, when they’d eventually land again to pick up supplies.

It was Havve that found them. Implantable microchips, just a pack of a dozen. Grabbed Sung’s wrist and pulled him back to show him, held in his open palm. Sung took them, read the packaging. Read it again. Havve still hanging onto his wrist. Sung looked up at him, grinned, heading to the cashier, pulling Havve by his hand behind him.

They were bent over these tiny little chips plugged into a motherboard together. Sung doing the on screen coding, Havve with a magnifying glass, pushing wires. Every spark or error was exhilarating, every little mistake something they did together, less and less like strangers forcefully pulled together.

A few chips got fried from their experimentation, but eventually they figured something out. Kind of. How to manipulate these malleable little chips into almost anything. It got cogs turning in Sung’s mind; he was already made of some machinery, who’s to say he couldn’t add more?

“Havve.” Sung breathed out his name, almost accidentally. “I got an idea. Do you wanna help me with it?”

* * *

 

Sung kept rubbing the back of his head, bumping over the sutures. Havve would scold him, never feeling the urge to be so touchy, and they didn’t quite have control over it yet, Havve’s voice out loud and inside Sung’s head, both sounding different. Sung could only grin in response, sending an incoherent mess of excitement and babble into Havve.

Like the universe was invested in keeping things equal and even, the better they got at this psychic communication, the harder it became for Havve to use his voice box, to speak out loud. No matter what Sung did, how many surgeries and repairs, it was determined to decline. Sung could hear Havve panic in his mind, what if this broke too, what would he do, what would they do? What if more of him broke? What if Sung-

_We’re going to be fine._

Loud and clear in their heads, Sung running his hands through his hair.

“We’re going to be fine, Havve, just trust me.”

* * *

 

They were very fine for a very long time. Sung passively looking for the remaining half of his band, getting more fervent in his search the longer Havve was silent, the lack of progress in getting his voice back paralyzing.

So he dropped that.

Threw himself into the search, pulled Havve along with him.

Sung really thrived when he had a role to play. Any time he could give himself a persona to fill out, he grabbed onto it, digging his fingers in.

And if that persona was to be a hero? Save a noble from his dying planet, and the one who killed it? Be the hero that flawlessly smoothed over any rough patches between them, his perfect band rising from so many ashes?

Well that was all the better.

Havve tsk’d at him while he circled the same little bit of space, after he had flicked through dozens of timelines. He was still checking through them, making absolute certain this was the one he wanted, the one that had the best outcome.

Well.

The outcome he wanted.

Sung ignored Havve’s judgement, tempted to shut off the communicator. He had to keep it on, though, he needed to get the distress signal. He’d watched this path dozens of times, like a movie. He got to play the good samaritan, the mysterious stranger, graciously taking in these people with nothing to lose, his knowledge of the future, emotional understanding and medical knowledge smoothing over every possible bump. They’d think he was cool and generous, he’d keep his calm and all would go well.

Words flashed across the comm screen, Havve’s head tilted down in the hologram, staring at the keyboard as he typed. ‘YOU’VE HAD AN ALERT BLARING WHILE YOU FANTASIZE’

Sung scrambled to sit up, didn’t bother to respond. Opened the alert, message already memorized from all the times he’d watched his future play out.

He grinned, revved the engine in anticipation.

“We’ll be seeing you soon, Havve,” he said just before shutting off the communicator, eagerly racing off.

* * *

 

It was a shit show.1 A disaster. Completely unplanned, Sung had been a naive fool for thinking it would all go off without a hitch, the way he wanted. He kept lamenting this to Havve once he got back, before anyone had even really adjusted.

“This is just completely off the rails,” Sung muttered to him as he typed notes, making medical histories for his new bandmates. “I told you, yeah? That I was banking on the lord taking the memory wipe? And then he didn’t, which completely threw me off?” Havve was silent. Sung had told him, first joyfully, excited that things were going better than he expected--

“And the Commander! Jeez! That was a dark horse, having to wipe his mind just to keep him from offing himself.” He tsk’d softly, backspacing, rewriting. He always babbled on as he wrote things down, verbally working through it, almost transcribing. “It’s a mess now,” he murmured, “at least Phobos doesn’t remember that he asked me not to. I remembered to wipe that out, too.”

Havve continued not to say anything. Sung wasn’t talking to him not really; he was just making noise, justifying it to himself. He was quieter now, maybe he had finally caught on that Havve wasn’t going to respond. He started to leave the room, to let Sung work alone.

“Havve,” Sung called out just as he was in the doorway. “When I’m done this, I’ll need to look at your chip. I need to make sure their’s are the same.” Havve’s hand flew up to touch the back of his neck, not even a bump hinting at anything different. He nodded and left.

It was barely a day later Sung implanted them. He didn’t tell Havve until after, apparently had some means of getting it done without his help. He also didn’t mention what they said about it.

They wouldn’t get it now, they wouldn’t get anything, everything was new and different and it would just be one more thing in the slurry. He’d tell them later, Sung assured himself. They’d thank him for it then, he was sure. Just a little later, and they could know. When everything was fine, when it was a good time, he’d tell them everything he had to do to get them all where they were. To get everything to work, period.  Just not now.

Not now, he told himself, with the hectic shuffle of settling into living on Earth. Not now, as they worked together as a band, creating a cohesive sound together. Not now, as he crafted a lie to explain why they could all communicate psychically with one another.

Now, he was just such a strong empath that this was just a side effect of living with him. Now, that was how he knew everything about his companions, his empathy bordered on psychic powers, this was just a natural happenstance.

Holding that lie never stopped bothering him. It bounced around his head, keeping him up most nights, some nights, the occasional few hours. The longer it weighed down on him, the more reluctant he was to cast it off and reveal the truth. It had just been too long.

So long, in fact, that he was confident he’d never be exposed. Why would he be? They were settled and stable on Earth, life was predictable and easy, everyone was perfectly happy and healthy. Sung decided he could bear this for eternity, for the sake of everything continuing on smoothly. For the sake of everyone else.

If the constant ache in his heart was the cost of everyone being blissfully unaware, he could pay that.

They’d never find out, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 http://archiveofourown.org/works/9382298 
> 
> plz comment and let me know what you think! ps things get Going next chapter


	4. only golden plated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where that instance of violence is.

It was just a casual conversation.2 Sung kept telling himself to forget about it, it wouldn’t matter, Meouch wouldn’t take him up on the offer. He paced around for far too long; he told Meouch that he’d kept medical files on him, on all of them, offered to let him see. It took him a couple days to gather up his nerve and head down to the basement, to see what he could change to lessen the blow, if not prevent it entirely.

He hadn’t even opened the filing cabinet he kept them all in when he heard the basement door open.

“Doc! Ya down here?” Meouch called from the top of the stairs. The light was on, but Sung didn’t hear him move. Sung could’ve kept quiet.

Could’ve lied again.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he called back.

Meouch thumped down, and Sung just watched. Stood up straight, hoped and hoped Meouch was looking for him for something else.

“I, uh,” Meouch started once he was actually by Sung. “I wanted to see that- my file. I wanna know what you’ve been saying about me, dude.” He smiled, grinned, reached out and gave Sung’s shoulder a gentle shove.

Sung nodded, opened the cabinet drawer he was suspiciously standing right in front of. He hoped he wasn’t sweating, his eye turning any weird colours to betray him. His fingers flicked over the tabs of the file folders, even though he knew Meouch’s was the middle one. His own file was the furthest back, Phobos’ in the front, and Havve’s in a drawer on its own. He held it out to Meouch; compared to the rest of them, it was thin, only 20 pages or so. Maybe 30. It had been a while since Sung looked in it.

He handed it over, swallowed before speaking. “The beginning is just, like, anatomy stuff. A lot of it’s just what you’ve told me, so you can just skip over it if you want.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Meouch was still smiling, not really listening. He opened the front cover of the file, and Sung had never been so glad he made a title page for everyone. “Whoa,” Meouch mumbled. “This is all typed? I figured I’d have to spend an afternoon deciphering your chicken scratch.”

“My writing is not that bad.” He shoved Meouch the same way he had earlier, trying not to smile. “And, yeah, of course it’s all typed. I did most of this with voice to text, you know.”

Meouch made kind of a snorting noise, a half laugh, and that was it. He turned, headed back up, and left Sung.

Once the door shut, Sung started pacing. Considering, wringing his hands, thinking thinking thinking, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Hand over his chest when he forced himself to stand still, still shifting, fidgeting, maybe he should go back, give himself a do-over. But how far? An hour or two, and see what he could edit? Days, and change that conversation? Not have it at all?

Back to when he first got that distress signal, and do everything over?

He kept pacing. Worrying. Listening to every creak of the house, holding his breath every time the pipes rattled, soothing himself that it was nothing, maybe it wouldn’t even _be_ anything.

It took about an hour before he heard Meouch thumping across the house, specifically the stairs from the second floor.

“SUNG!” Hollered from the back door, where the stairs ended. “Sung, what the FUCK.” Across the living room, barely muffled by the basement door.

It slammed open and Sung didn’t even flinch.

“This had better be a fuckin’ joke.” Meouch stormed down the stairs, file clutched in his hand. Sung just stared, silent.

“Like, you’re messing with me, right? You made up some bullshit-” He kept waving the file around, close to throwing it- “Some sick, fuckin-- where you messed with my head and microchipped me.”

Sung could feel how furious he was. It made his guts tighten up, he felt like he had a fever.

“Answer me,” Meouch demanded, “tell me this is some sick joke, or, or--”

“It’s true,” Sung said softly. “I-- not just you, I--”

“You’re a piece of shit, Doc.” He was in front of Sung, holding the file up between them, as if it were a shield.

“I know.”

“When were you gonna tell me?” He stepped forward, bumping into Sung. “Were you ever? Or were you going to just keep this secret my whole life?” White hot fury rolled off of him, starting a feedback loop in Sung. This anger that wasn’t his, not really, just reactionary, bubbling under his skin.

“I didn’t _mean to_ , okay? I just-”

“You didn’t mean to!” Meouch repeated, stepping back. He grinned just to bare his teeth. “You just accidentally stuck a chip in me? Accidentally--” Cut himself off, lowered his voice to a harsh whisper-- “accidentally made me forget I destroyed Phobos’ planet?”

Sung ground his teeth together, tried to forcibly calm himself. “Just let me explain myself.”

“You already have.” He waved the file, fingertips turning white from how hard he was gripping it. “You wrote it all down and I read every word.” His hand twitched, like he was going to throw the file but then thought better of it.

Stupidly, Sung reached for it.

Meouch snapped it away, grabbed Sung’s wrist with his other hand. “Fuck you,” he spat out.

“Let me fix this!” Sung shouted, trying to pull his hand away.

“Fix it? You mean brainwash me again?”

“I never-!” Sung tried to yank his arm back again. “Let me go.”

Reluctantly, Meouch did and Sung stepped back. He held out his hand, palm up.

“Give it,” he ordered.

“No.”

“Meouch, give it to me.” For the first time that confrontation, Sung looked Meouch in the eye. Meouch was going to do as he was told, whether he wanted to or not.

Slowly, muscles straining against the movement, he reached over, placed the file in Sung’s waiting hand. His jaw trembled, trying to speak.

“Go wait for me upstairs.” Sweat trickled down Sung’s spine; he couldn’t remember the last time he forced someone to move, he didn’t think he ever had. It was exhausting and just the thought of it made his stomach twist. But he had to. He had to get things back to normal.

He felt his control waver, and hoped Meouch didn’t feel it as well.

That hope was dashed when Meouch lunged forward and punched him in the ribs.

Sung dropped the file, stepped back, and put his hand to his side. The fur on Meouch’s neck and shoulders was raised up, Sung could feel his blood rushing in his own veins. He kept stepping backwards, trying to stay out of Meouch’s reach, but Meouch could catch up easily, and Sung could smell his anger.

Again, Meouch lunged for him, grabbing his shoulders, pushing him back, trying to get him to the ground.

Sung scrambled, grabbing Meouch’s wrists and trying to push him away, then quickly changing tactics and leaning into that push, standing his ground. A growl rolled out of Meouch, lips pulled back, fingers squeezing, no point of claws.

 _What are you even trying to do?_ Sung asked, pressing the question directly into Meouch’s mind. That got another threatening growl, and he pushed Sung away, stepping back.

“Get out of my head!” He was rubbing his forehead, as if he had a headache, as if that would do anything. He sighed. “I’m not doing this, man. I’m-- I’m going.” He started to turn, his anger having tired him out.

“Going?” Sung repeated, mouth going dry. He was behind Meouch in an instant, grabbing at him. “No, no, no, don’t go, I’m sorry, okay? Just don’t--”

“Fuck off!” Meouch roared, swinging his arm back and striking Sung, claws out and dragging across his shoulder, face. Sung’s blood flew out, splattering somewhere behind him.

They both froze; Meouch with his hand in the air, Sung steadily dripping blood. That little bit of pain sparked a reaction in him, and he didn’t even think about what he was doing, just grabbed Meouch around the neck, squeezing, trying to drag him to the ground.

He was barely aware of claws scraping at his wrists, any noises or attempts at talking Meouch was making. Meouch’s knees buckled, and Sung toppled down with him, still gripping.

Blood from Sung’s face dripped onto Meouch’s, and that snapped him out of it. All he saw was the blood, and he brought his shaking hands to it, trying to find the source, forgetting his own injuries. “No, no, no,” he repeated, more blood appearing, the events of the last few minutes swirling around his mind. He was babbling, feeling the back of Meouch’s head, like he could feel a concussion, he couldn’t feel his hands but he knew they weren’t working the way he wanted. He kept blinking, trying to clear his vision.

The basement was getting darker, from the outside in, and Sung wanted to grit his teeth but he couldn’t-- or he just couldn’t feel it. His skin felt cold, but it was like he was separate from it, touching it, not that it was on his body. He was very frustratingly reduced to a brain trying to pilot an unresponsive body.

He didn’t even remember to be worried until he opened his eye, and all he could distinguish was that he was lying on the floor. As soon as he realized that, he sat up too fast, eye unfocused, something touching him, trying to keep him on the ground.

Everything came into clarity all at once; it was Havve keeping him on the ground, squatting in front of him and patching up his injuries. Meouch was by the stairs, on his way out, saying something to Phobos, who came over to check on Sung. He was clutching his file to his chest, peering over Havve, trying to maintain a neutral expression, but Sung could feel otherwise.

Maybe it all happened quickly, or maybe he just wasn’t paying attention. Before he knew it, he was sitting alone on the basement floor, Meouch’s voice upstairs, footsteps, and Sung knew he shouldn’t go up just yet.

He perked up at the stairs creaking, shyly peering over, hoping.

Dangus.

The cat never came downstairs, but here he was, prancing across the cold concrete floor, climbing onto Sung as soon as possible. He held Dangus to his chest, stroking his fur, tried not to flinch when he heard a door slam. He tried to just breath in the animal dander, shut his eye, trying to make this the whole world. It might have well been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 http://archiveofourown.org/works/10391736/chapters/27008946  
> sorry for not being fancy and having linking footnotes
> 
> please go ahead and tell me how afraid you are for the next chapter!!


	5. only place that feels like home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very light medical content. also the longest chapter so far so go take a break, jeez dude.

Sung had literally not stopped moving. 

Even with his constant frenetic movement, he hadn’t worked up the nerve to really do anything. He knew Phobos and Havve were upstairs, he could sense that, but had no clue where Meouch was. It was like a wall was suddenly missing from around him, leaving him exposed to the elements. 

By the time he decided to try and make it upstairs, see what the damage was, Havve had come down. Sung shamelessly clung to him, silently stayed at his side the way Havve usually did, desperate for some form of normalcy. To his credit, Havve was barely annoyed. He let Sung be as touchy as he wanted, and seemed to have come down just for that. 

“What happened?” Sung finally asked, voice weak as if he’d never spoken before.

Havve didn’t respond. 

“He didn’t really leave, did he?”

Havve shook himself free from Sung’s grasp, started heading upstairs. He didn’t say anything until he was all the way up, well out of Sung’s reach.

_ You can ask Phobos. _

So Sung waited. Couldn’t stand the waiting and figeted. The fidgeting made him anxious, hyper-aware, so he shut himself in his room, the reason he was waiting having flown right out of his head. He could pace and ruffle his hair and rub his hands together with impunity there, at least. 

He was so invested in this distraction, he didn’t notice Phobos coming in, shutting the door behind himself. Didn’t notice until Phobos put his hand on Sung’s shoulder. He jumped, eye wide, yellow flashing in his iris.

_ Why’d you lock the door if you wanted to talk? _

“What? No, I didn’t lock the door.” Sung was moving again, to his desk, touching the chair with the intention of turning it around and sitting it, but stopping as his fingers grazed it, turning back around and pacing up the length of his bed, stopping at the foot of it, starting to sit down but stopping, standing stock straight.

He followed Phobos’ lead, who sat perfectly in the middle of Sung’s bed without thinking about it.

_ He’s pretty pissed, but- _

“He’s not coming back,” Sung interjected, shaking his head. He put his hands to his face, ran them up into his hair. “He’s not going to come back, because he hates me now, and I ruined everything.”

Phobos pried Sung’s hands away from his scalp, putting soothing words into his mind that he didn’t listen to. Phobos’ hands felt like fire, Sung’s skin looked like it was under a black and white filter, he was so pale. 

Gentle, insisting Sung listened,  _ He’s mad, but he’s coming back.  _ Phobos held Sung’s hands, rubbing, squeezing, working feeling back into them, his own hands starting to glow softly. A very deliberate pause.  _ He doesn’t have anywhere else to go. _

“That’s my fault.”

Phobos just nodded. 

Sung tried to pull his hands away, but Phobos held firm. His grip was maybe the only way he could get his anger out.

_ He remembers everything, you know. _

That got Sung back to normal, a little. “Really? It was all just reversed?” A nod. “From reading it?” Another. 

Sung squeezed back. “Oh,  _ Phobos _ ,” he started emphatically, cut off by a head shake. 

_ I don’t remember any of it. I know what happened, but it’s not-- _ He shook his head again; that wasn’t the point. He drew his hands away from Sung’s, holding them in the air, ready to sign.  _ Before he went. _

His hands only hesitated a moment. “I can’t stand being here, around him, and I can’t even look at you without remembering what I did.” There was an echo of Phobos’ memory in Sung’s head, what Meouch said replaying, degraded a little. His stomach mirrored Phobos’, morphing into a cold pit at the thought of it. Once Phobos signed it, he brought his thumb to his mouth, pressing his teeth to the skin, not biting.

All Sung could do was stare down at his lap. It helped, somehow, to concentrate on the ebb and flow of Phobos’ anger, how it cycled with this bitter loss. And Phobos let him sit with it. Maybe. If he even knew Sung could feel it too, exactly the way he was. 

Phobos shifted, moving to sit more beside Sung rather than in front of him. He was trying to get comfy and trying to calm down, something else on his mind. 

_ I don’t want to know everything about you. _ Slow and careful, hands moving in empty shapes in front of his chest, grabbing at nothing.  _ But I do want to know more. As much as you know about me. I think that would be fair. _

“...Okay.” That was a lot. At least as far as Sung knew. He knew exactly how Phobos worked, all the different systems of his body, how they all worked together, and most of that was told to him by Phobos himself. It really would be only fair. 

A very obvious pause.

“...Well, where do you want me to start?”

That seemed to throw Phobos off. Like he hadn’t thought about starting anything, just the doing. He reached up, touched the back of his neck, fingers over the embedded chip.

Right. A good place to start.

“Well, that’s how you’ve been talking to me this whole time. I, uh, a long time ago, Havve and I found microchips like that, and they had telepathic channels on them.” He shifted, sitting up straight, getting comfortable, confident. “Obviously these aren’t the exact same ones, but I figured out how to install that on the ones, uh…” He trailed off, took a pensive look at Phobos.

Hand still on the back of his neck, maybe pressing his fingers over it; had it left a scar? Was it even raised at all? Sung couldn’t remember.

“Anyway. Uhm. That’s what I wanted them for at first, when it was just me and Havve, but then I…” Sung swallowed, leaned against Phobos, just pressing their shoulders together. “You know how I always know if anyone’s hurt or sick or anything? Before they do?”

Slowly, Phobos nodded, taking his time to think about it first. 

“That’s what they do. I can see all your vitals, everything I need to know if you’re healthy or hurt or anything.”

_ Why didn’t you ever tell us? _

“I wanted to! I thought I would, just, just when things were easier.” As he spoke, Phobos wrapped his arm around Sung, across his back, a comforting pressure he didn’t notice. “By the time that happened, it-- it’s been so long it was easier not to.” A squeeze, and he grabbed for Phobos’ other arm, pulling both around him. “...stupid,” he mumbled, “did that so I wouldn’t risk losing any of you and it went and happened anyway.”

Gentle shaking of his shoulder, but Sung persisted.

“Like, I get it, he’ll come back, but I just can’t--” he stopped because of the lump in his throat, grabbed Phobos’ arm with both his hands, tried not to curl his head down into his chest. “I don’t want everyone to be gone again. I don’t want to live through that again.”

Phobos pressed his cheek to Sung’s temple, gently nuzzled him, a silent urging on. 

“The planet went, right? And the- the everything, everything everyone felt about that, made them go too.” Sung sniffled, started to turn his head into Phobos’ chest, tried to pull himself closer. Quietly, a poisonous confession he tried to keep out of his mind, his bloodstream, “it’s not fair that they made me able to survive the thing that killed them”

A flurry from Phobos’ mind while he simply pulled Sung into his lap, let his friend wrap his arms around him, face pressed to Phobos’ chest. He rubbed Sung’s back, firm and even up and down, let him dip his toe in the feelings he’d dammed up for who knows how long. Slowly, softly, Phobos started to hum a simple little tune, sounds that went from long low ones to higher quick ones, skipping in audio form. That just made Sung squeeze tighter, try to nuzzle in closer.

It was a little bit before Sung said anything again, voice calm once more.

“Did your parents do that too?”

He felt Phobos smile against his scalp.  _ Even when I was grown up. _

“What was that like? Like, before… everything.” Sung kept quiet, a genuine curiosity motivating him. Phobos hummed, thinking, remembering. Both of them gladly stepped into the comfortable time of their pasts, before everything got hectic, the retrospectively feel good times they never thought about anymore.

_ I wasn’t in charge of anything. Not yet. And my parents weren’t the leaders, I was appointed. _ He started rubbing Sung’s back again, quick, like he was petting a lapdog.  _ There’s… not traditions, more like superstitions that we all wanted me to follow, so I would be a fortunate, a--  _ A sound that Sung didn’t recognize, bouncing around his mind. An untranslatable word from Phobos’ native language.  _ \--Or blessed, I guess, a blessed leader. _

“Mmhmm,” Sung mumbled, blinking his eyes so he wouldn’t be lulled to sleep. “What kind of superstitions?”

The sudden pinprick of loss.

_ It was very... fortunate for someone to be married before they took power. And the stronger the bond they had with their spouse, that was all the more fortunate. _ Phobos’ fingertips started to press into Sung, just a little. Just enough to ground himself, keep himself steady, calm.  _ People said I was well on my way to being the most fortunate ruler they’d seen. _

For the first time this conversation, Sung looked Phobos in the face. He was squinting his eyes, staring back at Sung, putting on a smile; lopsided and lips pressed together, tight and holding back. Sung opened and closed his mouth in worthless shapes before finally stuttering something out.

“I don’t... we don’t know if it was all as bad as it seemed, you know. If you’re really the only one left, or, or if everyone’s really…” He swallowed, kept going, “there were tons of bunkers like the one you were in, maybe, even, someone you know, they could’ve--”

Phobos just pushed Sung’s face back against his chest, his chin on the crown of Sung’s skull. Hand up from his back, ruffling Sung’s hair and mussing it all up.

_ What good will it do me, holding on to a hope like that? _

Sung relaxed his shoulders back down, a few guilty tears brimming as he tried to nod. Just before he could really dwell on it, Phobos moved on. Or moved back.

_ What about you? _ A gentle shake of Sung’s shoulder.  _ What did you do before we met? _

Sung shrugged. “Lots of things. I was a doctor, kind of. I’d go around, work at places that needed someone with first aid experience on hand.”

_ You travelled a lot? _

“Yeah. Yeah, it was my mission!” He sat up, letting go of Phobos. He’d forgotten about it. Forgotten! The whole reason he ever did anything, the whole reason he existed, really. So long ago, the person who had that mission might have well had been a stranger. “The planet my parents are from was orbiting a dying star, and our colony was on a planet without any other life-- no other species that were  _ people _ \-- so it was my duty to search for a place for us to emigrate to.” He just kept speaking, quickly, excitedly, the passion and drive he had for this goal having never really died out. “Not just us on the colony, either, but everyone back home, too, so I needed to find a lot of places, so we could all integrate into the populations without choking it out.”

_ Did you never find a suitable place? _ Phobos took his time asking that, knowing how this story ended. This was the first time he’d ever heard the beginning or even the middle.

“I did. Not before…” He waved his hand in front his face, slow circles as he hesitated. “...That star wasn’t as predictable as we thought.” He pressed his face against Phobos’ chest, leaning into him. He pulled his knees up, tried to curl up as much as he could. 

Slowly, to get his mind off of it, Phobos changed the subject.  _ The last thing I did with my parents was have dinner together. _

Sung chuckled, didn’t stretch out. “Yeah?”

_ Yeah. I cooked it. You and Meouch would’ve hated it, but I’d still make you eat it. _

That actually got half of a laugh out of Sung, and he stretched his legs out again, leaned away from Phobos, but not far enough away for Phobos to move his arm from Sung’s shoulder. He leaned back on his hands, looked ahead. 

Again, Phobos pushed him along.

_ What’s the last thing you remember about yours? _

“Easy,” Sung said, shutting his eye. “I was about to go off on that great mission, and they were still saying goodbye at the last possible minute. Ahm picked me up, she loved doing that, I think even more after I was taller than her-- like, right on her hip, like you’d hold a toddler. And I was telling her to put me down, and Layna hugged us both while I was complaining and just put her forehead to mine, and somehow that made me shut up. She smelled like our home, but mostly the garage, and Ahm smelled like, like just like herself and the antiseptic hand soap in our bathroom that only she used. Then she put me down and messed up my hair before putting my helmet on, and they both tried to fasten it on just like the first time I got it, when I was a kid.”

If he just kept his eye shut, if he just kept thinking of that moment, Sung could pretend he was still there, nothing had changed or happened yet. He could remember how his mothers’ hands felt on his skin, in his hair, how they both had a warmth different from his. He could almost feel a pressure on his forehead.

He opened his eye, let out a long long breath.

He reached up, put a hand on Phobos’ shoulder, shook it the same way he had. 

“Thanks. And I’m sorry.” Phobos put his hand over Sung’s, looked like he was trying not to smile. “I got scared of losing you guys like I’ve lost everyone else. And that’s not an excuse, really, I shouldn’t have…” He paused, bit the inside of his lip. “I got arrogant, I thought no one would be able to understand.”

_ I’m not the one that needs to hear this, you know. _

“Yeah. I know.”

* * *

 

Sung had scoured the entire house, looking for Havve. He finally ventured outside, to the dilapidated shed they kept in the backyard. Havve insisted on it existing, and he spent a great deal of time in it, doing god knows what. Sung never asked, and Havve never told.

The grass was deliberately thick the closer he got, it hadn’t been cut in a long while. There was the vague shape of a path, footsteps pressing the grass down. He followed them, assuming they were Havve’s.

He realized he was wrong when he was at the door and heard talking coming from inside. One side of a conversation, not the radio or a podcast or something Havve was listening to. Sung pressed his ear to the door, giving Havve a mental wave, just in case he was still unaware of Sung being there.

The response was instant. Bluntly,  _ Do not come in here. _ Sung stayed where he was, listening.

“--But, I’m sorry, man. For just bailing like that.” Meouch’s voice was muffled and quiet, but it was undeniably him. Havve mentally repeated it, letting Sung eavesdrop easier, but not letting on how he was responding. “I guess. I mean, you get it, right? I just couldn’t be around him, and everything here, everything I have, just made me think of it, made me agitated.”

A pause. Havve saying something, however he was doing it. 

“Like itchy, yeah. Like he was under my skin. He already is, but--” Cut himself off. Havve interjected, and Meouch laughed, loud and forced. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s gotta be better now, since-- well, and it has to be, y’know?”

Sung held his breath, as if they might hear him. He should go. Soon.

“He’s my best friend, I love him, I can’t just--” Sung hauled ass back to the house. He felt jittery, like he drank coffee way too fast, like he was made of pure energy. He wasn’t supposed to hear that, not yet, and eavesdropping was just another piece in the pile of things he’d done wrong. 

He came back inside in a blur, not really remembering walking the whole way in or opening the door. That was fine. That was more than fine. He had better, more important things to worry about than tiny little gaps in his memory; better things like planning a nice little family chat.

A nice little family chat to fix things.

* * *

 

It was the first time the four of them had been in the same room in about four days. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but the circumstances were. The feeling in the room was also completely alien to anything the group had ever faced together. 

It was the stiffest family dinner in existence, and there wasn’t even any dinner. 

Sung and Havve were on one side of the table, Phobos and Meouch opposite of them, as if they were split off into two factions, not about to have a group discussion. Sung nervously curled up in his chair, completely opposite to Phobos’ perfect posture, hands folded on the tabletop, the picture of the diplomatic leader he was supposed to be. Meouch was leaning forward, chair angled away from the table so he could lean his elbows on his knees, but with none of the warm friendly aura he usually had; he was raring up to pounce, storing up the energy to attack. Havve mirrored him, leaning in as if he had his heels dug in, hands in fists on his knees, unsettlingly blank. 

“S-so, um,” Sung started, a confident leader forging the path of this conversation.

“You’re going to take those creepy chips out of me and Phobos.” Meouch made his demand, no hesitation. Phobos looked at him, narrowing his eyes. There was a distinct pause where he projected his thought just to Meouch, and then remembered to repeat it to the group.

_ No. Mine’s staying. _

Meouch’s hackles went up, a grimace of confusion on his face. “What?! He- he snuck that shit into you, and you’re okay with that?”

_ I never said that. _ Phobos was firm and unwavering, just his thoughts rendering him the stronger presence.  _ Sung and I talked. I’d rather leave mine as is. _ He looked away from Meouch, not across the table at the other parties, but down onto the fake wood grain of it.  _ If you want to act on your anger, I’m not stopping you. _

And Meouch got ready to yell. His shoulders hiked up, mouth open, taking a breath in. Phobos didn’t even look at him, not the slightest head tilt, daring Meouch to prove him right, that he really was just doing this only considering his feelings and not what might actually be best. Reluctantly, he slunk back down, facing ahead once more.

“I want mine taken out.” Meouch didn’t lose any of his confidence in his demand. Sung bit his lip before speaking.

“That might not be possible.”

“Yeah, cause you’re so experienced in taking them out.” Sung unknotted his posture at this, sitting up properly.

“I don’t have to take them out to know they’re embedded in our spinal cords,” Sung defended, suddenly assured with Meouch’s resistance. “I was stupid to instal them the way I did, but I’m not going to be stupid again and try to yank it out without knowing how it’ll affect you.”

“Oh, how convenient, then!” Meouch stood up, towering over everyone. Havve stood up as well, across the table. “I’m stuck with you in my head,” he accused, glowering down his snout at Sung. 

Not able to get around, Havve stood behind Sung, holding the back of his chair, leaning over him. 

“I don’t think it’s safe to take it out,” Sung said slowly, a sternness in his voice, “but I can shut it off. If it causes any problems then, I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t want to do anything risky.”

A disgruntled growl filled the room. He was about to protest again, make another snide comment, but Phobos graciously interrupted.

_ What would shutting if off entail? _

“I’d have to make an incision, big enough to get the cover off, and then literally hit the off button on it.” Sung motioned to the back of his neck as he explained, touching and tapping where his own chip sat. He shrugged. “It would be easier if I was enough to a careless quack to use something that could be disabled with a magnet, but even then that seemed like a bad idea.”

Finally, Meouch relaxed, and even smiled a little at that. “How soon can you do that?”

“Now.” Sung stood. “Oh, I’ll have to cut off some of your mane first. Just enough so I can see what I’m doing, is that okay?”

“Oh, so you’ll ask about changing my hair, huh?” 

“I get it, I suck, c’mon.” It was refreshing, how quickly Meouch leapt back into friendly ribbing. Havve watched them as Sung led the way to the basement, still standing, still gripping the chair.

“So,” Sung said, cutting away the smallest patch of fur possible, nice and close to the skin, “this is gonna shut it off completely. I could do it less remotely from my computer, but that’ll only put it into standby.” He clipped Meouch’s mane out of the way, and started swabbing the area with alcohol. “I wouldn’t have to do all this for that, wouldn’t even need you here, but I figure you want it all the way off.”

Meouch just grunted in response. Sung peered over his squared shoulder, at how he gripped his knee, knuckles stiff. 

“You want a topical?” Sung asked.

“What?” Meouch didn’t respond right away, wasn’t paying attention.

“A topical-- a numbing gel, so you don’t feel the the cut.”

“Oh, uh, yea-- how long would it last?”

Sung shrugged, even though Meouch couldn’t see. “Ten, fifteen minutes, tops. And about a minute to actually start working.”

“Yeah! Yeah, please.” Sung went to go fetch it. “And don’t tell me anything until it’s done.”

Sung nodded, and they let silence over take them until they came back upstairs. The other two band members having left, string lights leading up the stairs a very good clue as to where they’d gone.

“Hey,” Meouch said, low and muffled, cigarette held between his lips as he stood at the back door, just about to turn the handle. “...Thanks.” He turned and went outside pretty quickly, but Sung followed, held the door open just a crack.

“Let me know if something doesn’t seem right, okay?” Meouch kept his back to Sung, walking a polite distance away from the house. “About anything.”

Sung took Meouch waving his hand over his shoulder as an affirmative.

* * *

 

It wasn’t as if things went back to normal. Things were better, markedly, but still awkward, like a tooth being removed and then braces added; clumsily adjusting to something missing and being surprised at the sheer size of that missing piece, while fumbling to work around something new, and unfamiliar structure.

The most ungainly, was Meouch. He was quiet. Avoidant. Maybe he was still mad. Or at least upset. 

A group practice blew his cover. The first one in a while, one had been skipped, and finally the band’s irregular routine was getting back on track.

Except something didn’t sound right. 

Something like the bass.

Not even five minutes in, they all stopped, Meouch staring at the floor as if it was telling him the secret to life. The sudden silence was more jarring than the discordant notes he had been playing.

Phobos touched his arm, just his fingertips, and Meouch jerked away. 

“Something doesn’t seem right, Commander.” Sung urged him gently, waiting. Meouch shuffled his feet, knowing stalling wasn’t accomplishing anything.

“Since you shut off that thing,” Meouch said to the floor, “I haven’t been able to play.”

“That was days ago.” As Sung spoke, he felt a wave of anger come from Meouch. Not anger at Sung, or outward at all; anger at himself, a phantom smell that stuck to the back of Sung’s throat. 

Meouch almost looked up-- he turned his head to the side, trying to glare at the wall. “I didn’t… I thought maybe I was still freaked out about it all. I thought it’d get better.”

Everyone looked at each other, Meouch trying to exclude himself from this, from knowing, as much as he possibly could. 

“Let’s just turn it back on and see what happens.” There was almost a concurrent gasp at Meouch suggesting that. Sung looked at Phobos, Havve, and they both seemed as shocked. He didn’t question it.

“Okay! Uh, I can put it on in standby mode, so it’s not really on and doing anything.” Sung was quick to offer something, eager to ease Meouch’s bitter anger.

“...Can we do that, like, now?” Meouch shifted his weight from foot to foot, glancing at the other two in the room. “I wanna get to practicing, if we can.” 

It wasn’t as strange as Sung thought it would be, Havve watching silently, unmoving from behind his drum kit, Phobos grinning with his hand over his mouth at how Meouch looked with his mane clipped up. Meouch was certainly less ornery with an audience. 

Once it was theoretically good to go, the universe stopped as everyone waited with baited breath. A simple simple test, notes of a scale ringing out, perfectly, and of course, cocky grin on his face for the first time in recent memory, Meouch started really playing. As over-the-top complex as he could make it, a bounce back in his spirit, continuing on even when he stopped playing, ready to finally make things normal again.

The practice when gloriously well, everything an excited blur, finally, finally back in sync with a jubilation. 

There was a similar whirlwind of joy once it was over. It left the basement with Phobos and Havve, leaving the other two with something empty but bright.

Meouch was stalling, obviously. Sung was as well, slow plodding steps to the stairs, hand on the rail, he knew, he could feel it.

“I wanna talk,” Meouch said, just a little too quiet, slow and careful. Sung turned around, matching that caution, and stayed where he was, waiting. Looked at Meouch, on that stool he liked so much- a barstool they picked up from some garage sale a few years ago. Meouch had reupholstered it, made it look brand new again.

He looked up, met Sung’s gaze. He frowned, only for a second, like he was trying not to be upset. “C’mere, man.” Uneasily, Sung came closer, within arms reach of Meouch. 

That wasn’t good enough. Meouch tilted his head, honest-to-god smirk on his face. “Dude, stop bein’ weird. You can lean on me and get all clingy, it’s fine.” He waved his hand, patting his shoulder. Just as asked, Sung shuffled over, grabbing one of his workbench stools and placing it behind Meouch. He sat down, leaned his shoulder against Meouch’s back, perpendicular to him.

His shoulders moved, pushing this easy calm outwards as he adjusted his bass in his lap. He played a few long notes, as if he was taking the time to think about what he wanted to say.

It was comfortable in a way they hadn’t been. And that felt weird. There was no animosity in the air, no tension-- at least not from Meouch, anyways. It was just like they always were, Sung in Meouch’s space, and Meouch being okay with that. He even let his eye shut, just accepting that this was it, just the soft noise and gentle movement.

“You know you’re literally my best friend, right?”

Sung’s eye flew open, he stiffened, sat up a little. It startled him. He settled back down, replied. “Haven’t really acted like it.”

Meouch shrugged. The tiniest spark of anger, smothered out as soon as it came alight. “Yeah, well…” He put his focus a little more into playing, a distraction. “I do trust you, Sung.”

Sung sat up a little straighter, turned his head to peer over Meouch’s shoulder. Couldn’t see his face at all, could just barely see his arms moving. 

“I’m… sorry. For not deserving that.” 

“Are you also sorry for being such a sad-sack right now?” That got a snort out of Sung. He smiled, pressed his face against Meouch’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I am,” he said, voice muffled. He could tell Meouch was smiling, he could feel it, making his face move sympathetically.

Meouch didn’t stop playing, didn’t let them settle into silence. “I really do trust you a lot, I always have, so that’s--” He stopped suddenly, let his shoulders fall, relax again. “It really hurt, to find all that out.” 

“I didn’t mean to--”

“I don’t care what you meant.” Not said harshly, just matter-of-fact. “It doesn’t matter to me if you had good intentions, you still-- you still lied to me, man. You didn’t tell me what you were doing to us, and that’s lying.” 

Sung just nodded in response. He felt okay, Meouch wasn’t angry-- he said so, he just wanted to talk. Which he usually didn’t, but maybe it was time for things to change.

They were both quiet for a few minutes, and just when Sung thought he should say something, Meouch spoke up again.

“I talked to Havve about it.”

“Yeah?” Sung asked, not really surprised. “I… overheard you two. I was looking for Havve, I wasn’t trying to listen in.”

“Yeah, I know.” Meouch laughed, soft, a long note punctuating it. “Havve told me as soon as you were gone.” He paused for a moment, and then started up again slowly. “I was still pissed then, so I didn’t wanna see you or Phobos, y’know? It would just be a mess, but I knew I had to come back home.”

Again, Sung nodded. Havve hadn’t mentioned it. He hadn’t really given Havve the time for that, honestly; all Sung had been doing was lamenting over Meouch hating him now and having ruined everything and how was he going to have anything good ever again--

He pressed his weight against Meouch, tried to stop the spiral of thoughts. It was okay. Things were going to get better. He had to stay calm, everything was fine now. 

The conversation he had with Phobos played in fast forward in his head, skipping to what he said about Meouch. He was furious with Sung, yes, but he remembered everything from when he met Phobos, was pulled right back into all the guilt from back then. Sung wrapped an arm around himself, tried not to imagine what that felt like. 

He waited for Meouch to talk again.

“Him and Phobos said to go easy on you, y’know?” He laughed, a warm chuckle. “Havve told me to ‘think of the family’, but I think he was joking a little. Trying to lighten the mood.” Sung could almost hear it, the few words Havve could get out at a time, using them to cheer their friend up. “And, uh,” Meouch started again, shifting in his seat, “Phobos didn’t  _ say _ this, but he said you were actin’ pretty-- you were desperate, to keep us all together.”

“Yeah,” Sung murmured. “I really thought you were gonna be gone for good. I didn’t… I don’t know how to handle that.”

“You’re not gonna have to worry about that for a long while. Unless you secretly implant stuff in me again, then I’m fuckin’ out of here.” They both laughed at that, just a twinge of bitterness fueling it. 

They rolled naturally into silence, and Meouch’s playing went back to simple long notes, just making noise. 

It was warm, Sung realized. Or it felt warm. Warm from his chest, his gut, from inside him. He wasn’t as on edge as he had been, he was finally stable, his body running smoothly. 

“I’ll tell you,” Sung offered, mostly talking into Meouch’s back. “Anything you want to know. About me, or what I was thinking, I… I’ll tell you, dude.”

“Oh, thank god, you’re finally dude-ing me again.” Meouch threw his head back, clunking his skull into Sung’s. He finally stopped playing, stretched his arms out one at a time. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I’ll take you up on that. I’ll, uh, I’ll ask you about that. I guess. We’ll talk. Really talk, like this.”

Slowly, Sung turned his torso towards Meouch, brought his hand up and grabbed the side of his shirt. With far more certainty, Meouch grabbed his hand, wrapping Sung’s arm around him in a hug. He patted his arm twice before pulling away, letting Sung squeeze him. 

“I don’t wanna see you freak out like that again, man.” Sung shook his head in agreement, he didn’t want to feel like that again. “Like, it sucked to see you so… not you. That was the worst. I couldn’t be mad and have you just be normal, you had to get all timid and shit. It made me feel guilty, and then I was pissed at me.” Sung pressed his forehead against Meouch’s back, right between his shoulder blades. Brought his hand up next to his own face, another point of contact, willing himself not to cry, it was okay, it’s okay, don’t cry, don’t cry. 

He sniffled, his shoulders shook, and Meouch gingerly placed his hand over Sung’s. 

Sung slowly calmed down, kept his grip tight, didn’t dare lift his head.

“Hey.” Soft and trying to be serious. “I’m not gonna make you pass out again, am I?”

That made Sung laugh. Really laugh, pulling away and covering his mouth, wheezing choking. Meouch turned to face him and his was still giggling, both hands on his face, grinning and trying to calm down. He looked up at Meouch, iris glowing a bright bright blue. He grinned, both of them baring sharp teeth, nowhere close to threatening on either of them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thats it thats the end thank you for doing this.  
> please tell me what you think about it all!!

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and let me know what you think!!


End file.
